How Blogging Helps Authors (In Short)

Many authors might feel that blogging is a super waste of their time, (many simply give up) but truthfully, it’s the #1 way to build your online presence. After researching all the cold hard facts about my page views, visits, subscribers, comments and keywords, rankings for my non-fiction book proposal for my memoir Accidental Soldier, I realize now why agents and publishers alike want to know these cold hard facts. Blogging increases sales.It’s a huge marketing tool that many authors undermine.

A following, typically created from blogging, isn’t built overnight. It takes a great deal of effort, time and planning. But I find that authors need to be reminded of the benefits of blogging from time to time because they aren’t always convinced that someone is reading their blog somewhere in the world.

Based on tried and true experience, I’m convinced that if you work the blogging piece, over time, you’ll be able to do the following:

1. Impact sales. Sales are determined by how well you are “known” and that can only be determined by frequency and of course, they way you manipulate keywords and keyphrases. If you only blog once a month, you may not be on everyone’s radar and you’ll be forgotten. Google analytics are always changing. What’s here today, is gone tomorrow. There’s lots of debate about frequency, but I’m a fan of consistency. If you can only blog once a month, then keep it consistent. Consistent blogging builds your online presence.

Other benefits include:

2. Blogging connects you to your target audience. Once you’ve identified your target audience, then you can start visiting blogs, forums and threads where your target audience hangs out and provide a “breadcrumb trail” back to your blog.

3. Blogging personalizes your writing voice.. Blogging is truly an “outer voice” endeavor but once you blog about the universal themes and lessons of your book, you come full-circle as an author. The key of course, is to work both “hats.”

4. Blogging makes you accessible. Prospective readers can leave comments (Hopefully, good ones) and connect with you after they’ve read your book. Your peeps connect with your blog because they want to connect with YOU. The more accessible you are, the easier it will be to build that connection around your book as a centerpiece.

5. Blogging opens the doors to many other opportunities including joint venture partnerships, guest blogging as well as speaking and writing opportunities. You just never know when that door might open.

For the life of me, I will never be able to understand why authors neglect their blog, shut it down or blog so infrequently that they’re losing readers. It’s like leaving money on the table or giving up on an opportunity to build a following that can strengthen that deeper connection.

If you’re an author who believes in the power of blogging, but doesn’t have the time to blog, please contact me. I can help! We’ll set up a free strategy session and talk about ways to bring your blog to life!

Comments

I was just thinking about this, and agree with all you say here. I guess that authors give up because it’s not the quickest way to earn, and we do need to pay the bills. Having said that, it is the one way to build your online presence and to tell others who you are.

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Dear Dorit, Thank you for your wonderful performance on Sunday. It was a model for writers of narrative fiction, blending the outpouring of personal experience with the techniques of dramatic delivery. It moved from the specific detail of searching for a fig tree to the universal meanings of home.